


doors that should be shut

by crayolasfic



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Unrequited Love, this is zutara centric but mai/zuko and katara/aang are implied/mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 05:53:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15812769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crayolasfic/pseuds/crayolasfic
Summary: Every time she visits, it's like no time at all has passed.Things change; they do, their friends do, the world does. But their friendship - the easy, comfortable way they are with each other - never changes.





	doors that should be shut

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is some good old-fashioned ANGST.
> 
> The title of this fic comes from "Into The Wild" by BOY, and the story is *heavily* based off the song. It's not necessary to understand the fic, but I really recommend you go listen to it; maybe before reading, maybe after, maybe during, maybe all three? It's just such a beautiful song (and it fits my headcanon for canon-verse Zutara so well).
> 
> (If you do listen to the song, listen to [this version!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYpK0Z95MYg))

Every time she visits, it's like no time at all has passed.

Things change; they do, their friends do, the world does. But their friendship - the easy, comfortable way they are with each other - never changes.

They share stories, tell jokes, laugh together. They reminisce about the days at the end of the war, the weeks of peace treaties and council meetings right after the war. They find each other on late night walks and talk - just talk.

But they look at each other a little too tenderly, share accidental, gentle touches that linger a little too long. They dance around each other like dragons, but go to their separate rooms at the end of the night, and nothing ever changes. Of course, nothing ever will.

And neither will the way he feels about her.

He loves her - he does. And not in a selfish way - he cares for her, just as he knows she cares for him. They share a deep, natural connection, an unbelievably close friendship, that he doesn't share with anyone else. And he couldn't possibly ask for anything more.

But that doesn't stop him from wishing he could.

He forgets sometimes, when she's not here, and tries not to let it eat away at him when she is. Ignores the what-ifs, the could've-beens. Reminds himself, every time he steals a longing glance at her when she's not looking or thinks of her when he visits the beach in the middle of the night, that that's a door that should've closed a long time ago. That there may have once been a time that the possibility of _them_  existed, but that time had long since passed.

But when she comes back, so do all the feelings he works so hard to push down every time she inevitably leaves.

And when she does leave, he is always overcome with the longing to go with her, to follow her out into the world. He loves his home, but feels stuck here sometimes, and when she is here it doesn't feel so bad - but when she leaves, she takes his heart with him. When she leaves, each time, it gets harder and harder to push those feelings back down.

He imagines what it might be like, in another life, where he could leave behind all his responsibilities and just go with her - a life where she would let him, would ask him to. Where neither of them had someone else to go home to, no obligations to uphold, no countries to rule. He imagines running away with her, leaving everything behind one night and just going wherever the winds take them. Camping out in the wild like the old days - but this time, it's just the two of them. Exchanging stories by the fire, laughing together in the moonlight, sleeping under wide starry skies, holding each other closer when it gets a little too dark.

He imagines a less far-off life where, maybe, she would just want to stay here with him.

But he knows he shouldn't be imagining these things. Knows that they will never happen. That it's not meant for them, not in this life.

When she leaves, he sees her off, promising to write (which they do). He watches her go as she climbs into Appa's saddle, or boards her ship,

(sometimes she comes alone, and those are undoubtedly the more torturous visits, the more impossible goodbyes)

watches until they're just a speck in the sky, or until her ship disappears beyond the horizon. He goes back to his work, to his people, to Mai. Tries not to think of the waterbender who doesn't know of the icy grasp she holds on his heart.

The first few days after she leaves are always hard, but he gets over it in time. The majority of his days are spent in council meetings, trade negotiations, peace talks. He distracts himself, finds it too easy sometimes to fall back into the clockwork of life without her - he has to, after all. And he is generally happy; he is loved by his people, is bringing change and peace to the world, has the support of his advisers and his allies and his Uncle and his friends; has almost everything he's ever wanted.

But sometimes, in the middle of a long meeting, when nobles are bickering back and forth and his eyes have long since glazed over, he swears he can see her face in the flames beside him. Or late at night when he can't sleep, when he goes to the pond in the garden and throws stale bread to the turtleducks, swears he can feel her presence beside him, forming the ripples in the pond and the aching in his chest.

Or sometimes he hears the echo of her laughter in crowds on the streets, feels the ghost of her gentle hand on his scarred cheek when someone stares at it for too long. He feels the memory of electricity wracking through his body when he looks at himself in the mirror in the morning, seeing the scar that spreads from the center of his chest, just below his heart. Sees her kind, deep blue eyes meeting his when he stares out at the ocean under the light of a full moon.

It doesn't always happen. But when it does, it jolts him out of reality, brings him back to that world in his head (in his heart) where _they_  exist, sends his heart racing and his mind reeling with memories of her from another life. It always takes him a moment to himself or a nudge from someone else to remember where he is.

And when he eventually does, he knows deep in his heart, no matter how hard he tries, no matter how much time passes, that he'll never truly get over her.

-

What he doesn't know,

is that it happens to her too.

That she stands at the edge of her ship when she leaves, watches the harbor disappear on the horizon; thinking that if she really wanted to, she could turn the whole boat around by herself and run back to him. That she thinks of his eyes when sunlight filters in through windows; of his small, warm, just-for-her smiles when she sits alone in the snow at night; of the memory of his kind, low voice telling her to get some rest when she stares up at the moon in the back of Appa's saddle, pretending to be asleep. That she hears the echo of his desperate shout of protection whenever lightning cracks in the middle of a thunderstorm.

That she sees his face for split moments in the flames of flickering campfires.

She wonders if he'll ever know.

-

He wonders if  _she'll_  ever know.

-

One night, years later, they get their answer.

-

They're older, the war seeming impossibly long ago now. They don't see each other nearly as often as they used to; reunions have become few and far between over the years as everyone has grown up.

But they see each other tonight.

It's late at night, long after everyone else has gone to sleep. The night of his Uncle's funeral.

He can't sleep - of course he can't, he doesn't even try - and she finds him, because she knows him. She knows her dear, lifelong friend, knows how much he must be suffering over this.

So she finds him, and he isn't surprised when she does. Because he knows her, too.

They don't speak - they already spoke and expressed their grief earlier, and there's nothing left to be said.

But after a long silence, he leans into her, and she holds him as he cries. It's the first time he's allowed himself to, about this. She thinks it might be the first time she's ever seen him cry at all.

It feels like hours before his tearful shaking stops, and longer still until he lifts himself from her embrace. When he does, she sees a sad gratitude in his bloodshot, tired eyes.

_Thank you,_  says his weary gaze.

She lifts her hand to his cheek in a silent gesture of,  _always,_  and,  _of course_ _._  And she strokes her thumb gently along the edge of his scar, and as she does, the look in his eyes is enough that she knows.

She knows.

And because it is a night for mourning, she decides, as she looks into his eyes, to lay one more thing to rest. To finally close a door she knows should've been shut a long, long time ago - for both of them.

She leans forward to press her lips to his cheek, ever so gently, perhaps a little too close to the corner of his mouth. She lingers there for a moment as a stray tear of her own runs down her cheek, before pulling away. She presses her forehead to his, and opens her eyes to find that his are closed.

They don't move apart for a long, long time after that. Save for their breathing and her thumb stroking his cheek, they don't move at all. And he doesn't open his eyes until they finally do.

Because,

he knows.

-

After that night, the visions they have of one another go away almost entirely.

-

(Almost.)


End file.
